something so difficult to understand
by claysnail
Summary: Five short pieces on a loose theme of "touch".


Originally posted on Archive of Our Own; modified slightly since then. These pieces are not in chronological order. Thank you for reading.

* * *

1.

An evening in spring, when the cherry blossoms were nearing the end of their splendor.

Following a satisfying meal and a lighthearted chat, Shiki and Mikiya walked back to her apartment in comfortable silence. That was often how things ended up. Maybe it was because of their full stomachs, a fulfilling kind of weariness; or maybe it was due to the shift from a noisy, bustling restaurant into quiet shadowed streets. Maybe there was something else. Side by side in lamp-light darkness, they walked slowly, just shy of any contact, and the only sounds now were their footsteps and faint traffic in the distance.

But this time, something _was_ a little different. Mikiya was surprised to feel Shiki's hand first brush against his fingers, then slip, ever so gently, into his hand. Warmth unfurled in his chest. They had not held hands since the day he was released from the hospital. He glanced at her, but she was looking straight ahead with an unreadable expression.

He gave her hand a soft squeeze and walked a little closer. They did not let go of each other until they reached the entrance into her apartment building. She didn't say a word about it and something ached a little inside of him, but he thought that maybe it was the impermanence of her touch which made it that much more important to him.

He kept thinking of how she had seemed brighter and softer, somehow, while they ate and talked. He was reminded of a knife not dulled but still wonderfully sharp, powerful, eternal, wrapped in a beautiful cloth, embroidered with flowing patterns and shimmering blossoms. He thought of SHIKI, the one who had reached for his hand first; a different grip that had held the same glow.

* * *

2.

Nearly noon on a rainy day, when she happened to be alone.

Strangely, it was at times like these when her sense of touch became heightened in a particular way. Suddenly and not so suddenly, she noticed the texture of her bedsheets and her kimono, soft and nearly smooth under her toes and fingers. She laid her left hand against her counter and felt the cool surface, solid and unyielding. She turned on the tap and shocked the back of her right hand with the icy water that spilled over her skin; then she drank deep to feel the same kind of water slip too fast down her thirsting throat. She reached under her pillow and touched the worn handle of her knife hidden away there, unused for days. She traced a finger blindly along the chilled blade, finding the scratches and scars where another blade had clashed against it.

She listened to the gentle pulse of the rain outside.

It was cold. It sounded cold. She knew it would feel cold if she stepped out into it.

She pressed a warm palm against the left side of her chest, seeking the quiet beating of her own heart. She was reassured that she could feel it - that it was still there. It was warm. She curled up and threaded the fingers of her two hands together. It was warm, but it was not enough.

* * *

3.

An early morning in late summer, when the air was still cool before the heat of the day.

Shiki woke first. She opened her eyes slowly, sluggishly.

It was early. Very early. She didn't know why she had woken.

 _Isn't like me,_ she thought. Usually Mikiya was up before her (but never this early, even for him). In front of her was his back. She watched the outline of him move very slightly as he breathed deep, deep in sleep, deep in a distant world.

 _Kokutou_ _Mikiya,_ she thought. _Mikiya. Mikiya._ Something so simple as a name could cause her to feel countless things.

"Why did I wake up?" she asked him, quietly, and placed a hand against that unremarkable back of his, clad in the usual kind of unremarkable black shirt. The warmth that emanated from him almost surprised her, despite not being surprising at all.

 _Mikiya._

She inched forward carefully and placed her arm over his side. It was her prosthetic arm, just recently repaired, but it might as well have been her very own. He shifted and muttered but did not wake. She buried her nose into his back; he smelled like old shirt and the mild soap he liked to use. Weary, still asking why, she sank into the sensation of being in contact with him - something so simple, but not.

A few minutes later - or was it an hour? - Mikiya stirred again, and then stiffened.

"Shiki? he asked hoarsely. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, almost automatically, and drew away from his worried hand placed too kindly over her arm, rolling over and planting her face in her pillow so he wouldn't see the unwanted tears which had welled up in her eyes.

 _I woke up for this?_ she thought bitterly, and willed herself back to sleep.

 _Something so simple -_

* * *

4.

The surging, infinite darkness, when she closed her eyes and turned them inwards.

Sometimes Shiki remembered about SHIKI. To say it this way was too simple, however; it was more scattered and more sickly than merely remembering. It was like bumping into fragments of glass in her surroundings that somehow could still cut deep even after the waves of time should have rounded their corners.

It happened when she witnessed two children bickering.

It happened when she saw the right shade of yellow.

It happened when Mikiya smiled and spoke to her when the setting sun had cast everything in a burning glow.

It happened when she accidentally stepped into a puddle after a light rainfall.

It happened when she glanced too long at her body in the mirror.

Gradually, very gradually, it hurt less and became more like the dull ache of nostalgia; a fond linkage as she found remnants of his existence around her. Over and over, she confirmed with herself that SHIKI had been real, had been with her, and was now gone. When she felt hollow, she recalled how she and her life formed the dream he dreamed in his endless sleep, and found a sad kind of comfort in this.

She looked at a picture of outer space and closed her eyes. She remembered that the one time she had tried desperately to embrace him - the one she had loved and hated - had been in that void, after he had already died. He had slipped out of her grasp without her ever having touched him, and this regret perhaps remained the sharpest piece of glass of all.

It could not happen again, she had decided. Incredible relief filled her when she was finally able to embrace Mikiya, both of them covered with wounds, because it almost had.

* * *

5.

A night in winter, when the snow had just begun to fall.

Sensing something playful and rough in Shiki tonight, Mikiya let her push him down onto his back and tug off his shirt. She flashed him a grin - one that was painfully like _his_ \- and ducked her head close to his.

"Tell me if you don't like this," she said, meeting his gaze.

He laughed. "So far, I like it." And it was true; he liked it when she was more open and forceful with him; he liked it because he knew she would never hurt him despite everything. It comforted him to see her like this, able to push him down without the shadow of that memory clouding her eyes. So he liked it. But he felt from the way she had spoken that she maybe wouldn't like him to do the same to her.

When she pressed a hand down against his bare, lean chest, he felt the gentle hesitance behind that pressure, and encouraged her by holding that hand with his own and applying his own force. She found his heart and stayed there for a moment to simply feel its rhythm as he inhaled and exhaled. Then she leaned down, traced her fingers over his ribs, and laid her lips against the warm skin covering the centre of his sternum.

He breathed in sharply and she looked up at him.

"Shiki, I liked that," he said, shyly.

"Hmm," she responded, and moved up so they were face to face. She wasn't sitting on him but her arms were on either side as if to entrap him; Mikiya thought he wouldn't mind if she _did_ sit on him, so that he could feel her weight and be truly captured in her grasp. But he understood why she did not.

After thoughtfully observing his face, she extracted his glasses from where they nestled and placed them, folded, onto the floor. With uncharacteristic tenderness she swept her fingers through the black hair that concealed the mark of what he had lost.

"To see better," she muttered, smiling just slightly.

"Is that a joke?"

"Maybe."

He laughed quietly but couldn't think of anything else to say, so he concentrated on her now dipping her face close against the side of his neck - just close enough so her nose would graze his skin. She had wrapped a hand around his shoulder, careful to keep her hair back with the other, but stray strands still brushed by his jaw. When she reached his collarbones, he swallowed hard and closed his eye.

"Kiss me again," he heard himself say. "There."

She obliged and pressed one lightly against the curve of the bone as it rose and fell with his breath. Then she pressed another, and another, and another, until at last she kissed the precise spot below his neck where his clavicles joined to form a soft notch, still briefly, but more firmly. Mikiya did not hold back his gasp, nor the hand that flew up to grasp her shoulder.

"Enough?" she asked him slyly. As he shook his head slowly she saw a new kind of intensity in his half-lidded gaze.

It confused her and then thrilled her.

"Show me where you want them," she said, fixing her own dark eyes upon him.

Tentatively, he raised his chin, angling his head back against the pillow to expose his throat to her.

"...Really?" she muttered.

He nodded. "Really."

So she leaned in and kissed him there, softly and repetitively, feeling the slight bumps under his skin and his rapid pulse so close against her cautious mouth. He was so vulnerable, so defenseless, but he _liked_ it and wanted it with her, because she was the kind of person who could kill a lock with a ruler but would never draw blood from him or even bruise him in the slightest; because below her outward ferocity she was as kind as he had always believed; because when he thought about it there was really no one else he could be safer with. Because (as a logical reason which was the least important in his heart) the one who had wanted to kill him years ago had not been her. And he felt her trembling, too, and thought she must be nervous, so that sweat sprang from her palm pressed against his chest - nervous because she had never seen him like this before, never _caused_ him to be like this, so willingly unguarded with chest and throat bared despite the potential lethality lying dormant within her. The fact that he trusted her this much awed her and inspired her, so she found the projecting cartilage of his larynx and sucked at it just briefly - and that was just a little too much for him. A shudder passed through his whole body as he gasped out her name and clutched at her shoulders.

She drew away and stared at him with a mixture of fascination and shock.

"Mikiya, uh... Sorry," she said, slowly. As he caught his breath, she sat up, blood rushing to her cheeks.

"That was nice," he said first, and then covered his face with his hands as he turned a bright red himself. "Sorry, I mean - sorry - don't apologize, Shiki!"

She furrowed her brow and sighed, shaking her head.

"You're an idiot sometimes."

"I know."

When she laid her head down against him, she felt him welcome her weight and breathe out a sigh, too. Gently, unhurriedly, he circled his arms around her back.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"Can't believe you _wanted_ that."

"Don't forget you pushed me down first," he said. She laughed an untamed, carefree laugh which made his heart swell. Outside, the snow drifted down silently, and somehow, it was warm.

* * *

Over time, Shiki came to realize what touch, however brief, had meant to all three of them: _I know your loneliness_. _I am here._ It was really something so simple and inexplicable.


End file.
